Clinical Advice
There is a particular kind of advice
written for people
who have never needed advice.
CHOOSE HAPPINESS.
Usually printed
in a friendly font.
As though happiness
were one of the paint samples
at Home Depot
and I have simply
been standing here
holding gray
for fifteen years.
Tea is particularly confident.
I flip over
the paper tag
while it’s steeping.
BE PRESENT.
I am on medications
specifically because
the present
has historically been
a difficult place
for me to remain.
TRUST THE JOURNEY.
This is chamomile.
Fortune cookies
are slightly more careful.
A PLEASANT SURPRISE
IS WAITING FOR YOU.
Good.
Have it come upstairs.
There is a particular laugh
people with clinical depression
have about this stuff.
You hear it in group therapy.
In the smoking area
outside a treatment center
where someone has inevitably
been given a workbook
called something like
CHOOSING JOY.
Nobody has to explain
why that’s funny.
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People mean well.
They put KEEP GOING
on water bottles.
They paint YOU ARE ENOUGH
on rocks
and leave them
beside hiking trails
for exhausted people
to find.
Last week
I bought groceries.
Dish soap
Coffee
Something for dinner.
And a bag
of Dove chocolates.
The cashier held them up.
“Do you want these left out?”
Which felt presumptuous
and was also correct.
“Yeah, sure.
That’d be great.”
I opened them
before I started the car.
Unwrapped one.
BELIEVE IN NOW.
I forced enough air
through my nose
to call it
a soft laugh.
Ate the chocolate.
Smoothed the foil
against my thigh.
Then tucked it
into the edge
of the driver’s-side visor
where I could see it.
Anyway.
Those things
are fucking stupid.
-N
